The father was dreading the final siren, perhaps even more than his son.

“It’s an emptiness that’s hard to describe,” Walter Gretzky said before Wayne’s final game yesterday at the Garden. “When that siren sounds, it will be hard to believe. Watching him skate off the ice for the last time, I hate the thought of it even.”

There was no siren, just a Pittsburgh overtime goal by Jaromir Jagr that gave the Penguins a 2-1 win. And then every time it seemed Gretzky left the Garden ice for good, he came back for more – two encores, skating five slow laps around the rink, once with his teammates, waving, blowing kisses, saluting, trying on various hats hurled to the ice.

As Gretzky’s wife Janet had the tissues out, positively bawling, Walter stood by his seat behind the Penguins’ goal, stoically, managing to hold back the tears.

Walter Gretzky, 60, said yesterday’s ending kept reminding him of the beginning, when he took Wayne to skate on the Nithe River near their home in Brantford, Ontario, for the first time when he was 3. Walter, who tried to save everything, still has those skates. That’s what he thought about during the final laps.

Walter said he had no input into Wayne’s decision but sounded like he knew the underlying reasons.

“I think he wants to quit when he’s still been a little bit of an asset to the team and not be a drag on anybody,” Walter said. “He doesn’t want to take someone else’s place or be told you should retire Wayne. I know he would never want that.

“I would love to see him play another year, maybe two. But that won’t be. Today is the end.”

Walter said he expects Wayne to play golf the next few months before moving on to a mysterious new life.

“I know he’ll never coach and he’ll never ever be a GM,” Walter said. “A TV commentator? No. He’d have to be at a certain place at a certain time. He doesn’t even play the game that way. His game is anticipation, you know.”

A blood vessel in Walter’s head popped in 1991. He says he can’t remember a lot of the memories from Gretzky’s wondrous NHL career. But he remembers the first goalie Wayne faced – his Grandma Mary.

“The first person he shot a little sponge puck against was his Grandma,” Walter said. ” She’d sit in that Lazy-boy chair.”